Often, entrepreneurs see driving growth and performance as two different spheres, while in fact performance is frequently a key driver of growth. As a great leader, your role is to inspire, give momentum, and create more leaders, as well as better employees within your business. Consider these 12 tips to empower your team to accelerate performance and success.
Positive Communication – Leading out of fear does not create team performance, but team annihilation. Great leaders clearly communicate the vision, direction, and team expectations with enthusiasm. They are creative, intuitive, and inspiring to their teams. They lead out of hope, confidence, and a positive attitude. With words of encouragement and appreciation, their teams are motivated to implement the success strategies.
Proper Tools – Ingenious leaders increase performance by providing their teams with the right tools, methodologies, equipment, and technology. They do not overlook consulting with their teams and suppliers on innovative solutions that could deliver greater performance and bring value to the enterprise and its customers.
Motivating Career Plan – The power of great leaders lies in their ability to help their team members achieve their inspiring career vision. They encourage their teams to reflect on the Up You Go questions to gain greater clarity on their career goals. As supportive leaders, they assist their team members in the development of their action plan.
Focused Training – True leaders empower their teams with knowledge and training to enable their success and the achievement of their goals. They understand that leadership is an attitude, not a position. For this reason, they encourage their teams to strive to be leaders. In supporting personal leadership, they create improved performance and greatness everywhere within their organization.
Clear Accountability – Success is on the horizon of effective leaders who engage their team members to contribute to the best of their abilities. Accountability is key in performance improvement. It can be communicated through career goals, monitored with performance monitoring, and encouraged through coaching, mentoring, promotion, awards, and compensation incentives.
Pure Creativity – Creativity increases performance in many different ways, with original ideas, renewed tools, product development, new methodologies, and improved systems. Creative leaders encourage creativity enablers: teamwork, lunch and learn sessions, brainstorming, communication, new ideas contests, research, product development, and analysis of strengths and weaknesses. In doing so, they help their teams reveal their Marvelous Nature.
Inspiring Environment – The ability to be creative is a strong driver in performance and employment satisfaction. Inspiring leaders aim to design a workspace that is conducive to inspiration, innovation, performance, and productivity.
Fair Compensation – Fair compensation is also critical in performance. While pay is not the only driver behind productivity, employees who believe they are poorly paid are generally not motivated to go the extra mile. Fair leaders align compensation with the market and the required level of effort. They provide monetary rewards for over-and-above performance.
Ongoing Support – In their quest to create leaders, supportive leaders offer a coaching and mentoring program to their teams to help them gain clarity on their career vision and build their confidence as they move into action. They do not overlook inviting inspiring guest speakers to help their teams develop their leadership skills.
Performance Monitoring – Great leaders understand the power of performance monitoring. They make it a positive exercise where they let employees share what they did well and not so well, and where and how they could improve. As they listen with an open mind, they empower the reflection with positive and constructive ideas to help the employees achieve their career goals. They remain positive even in the face of disappointing results. They engage their teams in finding solutions to create greater performance. They use challenges as opportunities for greater teamwork, creativity, and innovation to rise.
Appreciation – Kind leaders are appreciative of team efforts. They know that a compliment and a thank you note can go a long way in increasing performance. They understand the power of praising words in building confidence and are not shy to say, “I believe in your greatness, and I will help you become the best that you can be.” They understand the message of belongingness and care that comes with spending time with employees. They celebrate team successes, small and grand, and they encourage initiative and creativity.
Get Rid of Bad Apples – Wise leaders recommend coaching, mentoring, and training to build up their teams’ competencies and desired behavior. At times, to avoid undermining their teams, they may have no other alternative than to terminate an employee who is simply not suited for the work at hand.
